CHAPTER 30

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I remember when I was nine years old I had walked in on my mother drunk, screaming angrily at the air while she laid on her bedroom floor.

She still had that ageless beauty, the "Italian Curse" as my father called it, but her eyes were cold and dark. Her eyes were always cold and dark, but that time, that moment, it was a coldness and darkness that didn't belong to her. It frightened me.

I'm brought back to that instance when I look at him—when I look at Sebastian. I see my mother all over again, and my hands shake uncontrollably. My heart beats against my chest with a rapid unrelenting rhythm I can feel through my ears.

Suck it up, Leslie, my mind chides. Someone needs your help.